Overengineering
December 4, 2012
“Overengineering” is anathema to most product manufacturers. Generally, manufacturers desire to put no more time and money into a product than is necessary. They decide upon a reasonable lifespan for a product, and then they use materials and parts that, with rare exception, have been proven to last that long. They do not care to produce a product that lasts longer than the consumer desires; they do not want to invest resources where they won’t see a return.
An exception to this general rule is invoked by those manufacturing products which, if they break, will kill or maim people. Airplanes are the classic example: they’re built with multiple redundancies and with materials and parts that have been tested to last much longer than necessary. The potential for catastrophic loss of life demands this. They will use a part that’s tested to last 20 years, and replace it after ten years just to be safe.
I suspect that some observers of the MHSAA’s recent campaign to increase sports safety training for coaches and modify playing rules that may endanger participants are critical that we’re asking too much, that we’re doing more than is necessary. But frankly, that’s exactly what we intend. When it comes to participant safety, overengineering of policies and procedures ought to be our goal.
Standards Promote Value
October 29, 2012
I can’t speak for every state, but it is probably true for most states, that (1) no school is required to provide a program of interscholastic activities – such are not curricular activities; and (2) participation in voluntary interscholastic competitive activities is a privilege offered to those who meet standards of eligibility and conduct of the school and standards of ability for the activity involved.
It is not a liability but an asset of competitive interscholastic activities that they are not co-curricular, but extracurricular – voluntary programs with extra standards, extra requirements, extra expectations.
We don’t need to sell the public on the value of participation; they desperately want their children to participate, and they will even sue us for the opportunity. What we have to do is sell the public on the value of the standards we maintain for participation.
Much of the value of school activities results from the standards of school activities. Many of the benefits of school activities accrue from the requirements of school activities. Raise the bar, raise the value. Lower the bar, lower the value.
Activities are much less capable of doing good things for kids and good things for schools and their communities where there are lower standards of eligibility and conduct. It’s the difference between interscholastic and intramural, between tough and easy. It is because schools have raised the bar for interscholastic activities that these programs have value to students, schools and communities.